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A Guide to 5G Telco Cloud Acronyms

Anyone who is a regular reader of our Tech Blog knows that we love our acronyms - and today's post is no exception! With the Q.Synergy event taking place this week at Quanta Cloud Technology (QCT) offices in California - where datacenter architects and operators, component suppliers, solution providers and system integrators come together to share the latest industry trends at the convergence of 5G, AI and Cloud – we thought it would be a great time to share our guide to some of the different acronyms commonly found in the emerging world of 5G Telco Cloud datacenters.

First, a little bit about what these trends might be: while expanding support for hyperscale deployments is a common necessity across all datacenters regardless of the industry, the large-scale commercial roll-out of 5G - anticipated as early as 2020 - has brought the following challenges to the near horizon:

Navigating the skyrocketing manageability challenges caused by tremendous growth in the hyperscale datacenter;

Changes in the server architecture to accommodate this growth;

Evolving industry standards on "fast track" for enablement and management of the new changes.

In addition to these, 5G Telco Cloud datacenters also require support at scale for adding new subscribers and increased speed across a wide range of devices deployed on the network. Demand for new network functions also continues to increase rapidly, and telecom companies are under pressure to roll them out quickly. This demand drives the need for Network Function Virtualization (NFV), which 5G Telco Cloud providers must leverage to be successful and rapidly deploy new network functions.

With all of these rising challenges and trends in mind, we have compiled the following list of key acronyms found in the 5G Telco Cloud datacenter environment to help our readers gain some footing in this brave new world:

Selected 5G Telco Cloud Acronyms, Courtesy of AMI:

AMI - AMI

Aptio®V - Not an acronym, but useful: UEFI Boot Firmware from AMI

BMC - Baseboard Management Controller

BTS - Base Station, Base Transceiver Station

AMI Composer - Not an acronym, but useful: AMI Composer enables the composition of resources with the ability to seamlessly provision and deploy compute, memory, networking and storage resources

C-RAN - Cloud Radio Access Networks, Cloud-RAN, Centralized-RAN

EM - Element Management

FPX - MegaRAC® FPX Fabric Management Firmware

FTW - AMI "For the Win"

HSS - Home Subscriber Server

MANO - Management and Network Orchestration

MegaRAC® - Not an acronym, but useful: BMC and Remote Management Firmware from AMI

MMP - Management Midplane

NFV - Network Functions Virtualization

NFVI - NFV Infrastructure

NS - Network Services

OSM - A production-quality open source MANO stack that meets the requirements of commercial NFV networks

OSS/BSS - Operations Support System/Business Support System

POD - A collection of multiple racks in a datacenter

RMM - Rack Management Module

RMX - MegaRAC RMX Rack Management Firmware from AMI

SDN - Software-Defined Networks

SDS - Software-Defined Storage

SPX - MegaRAC SPX BMC Firmware from AMI

vHLR - Virtual Home Location Register

VIM - Virtualized Infrastructure Manager

VLR - Visitor Location Register

VM - Virtual Machine

VNF - Virtual Network Function

vSGSN - Virtual Serving GPRS Support Node

vSMSC - Virtual Short Message Service Center

TL;DR - Too Long; Didn't Read: Call AMI @ +1.800.828.9264!

Because of these specific challenges and needs, some of the high-level network manageability features required by 5G Telco Cloud providers include the following:

No dedicated management hardware

Shared, poolable resources

Convenient access from anywhere

Rapid expansion and elasticity

On-demand network access

Offered as networks, servers, storage, app and 5G services

Fortunately, AMI products such as AMI Composer™ bring tailor-made solutions such as its AMI Composer Telco Cloud Manager (v1.0) to help address the manageability needs of 5G Telco Cloud datacenter end users and enable them to deliver Network Function Virtualization (NFV) at scale. AMI Composer Telco Cloud Manager also provides a streamlined dashboard for centralized view of all assets available for composition in the datacenter and enables users to discover, provision and deploy network services from a single application.

Thanks for reading today's Tech Blog, we hope you found our list of 5G Telco Cloud acronyms helpful! Feel free to drop us a line via social media or our Contact Us form and let us know what you thought of today's post – as well as what you might like to see in future posts!

Since 1985, AMI has designed, created and manufactured key hardware and software solutions for the global computer marketplace, providing the highest quality and compatibility necessary to build today's advanced computing systems.